Producing and distributing premium TV entertainment content is more 'global' now than at any point in the history of the business. World Screen does an excellent job in following the news, trends and key players. It's a must-read for those in the business of global TV and brings us that much closer to prospective buyers and distributors of our premium content.

The expensive ones are for Starz. No. We decided, as part of our Encore strategy, to broaden and strengthen and help focus the Encore plexus by adding original programming.

How do you get the protagonists and antagonists together, in the same space, without somebody having to die? So, we ended up having to tell two distinct stories, which is never the ultimate way to create a great serialized drama. So then, of course, we had the tragedy with Andy [Whitfield], which made everything very difficult and pushed back.

Throughout my career, I've realized that there are a lot of great opportunities out there to be associated with programming. It may have started elsewhere, as Crimson Petal did in the UK. So, our main strategy for Encore is to go through those types of partnership acquisitions.

In the mini-series area, we are going to have a regular year-round, weekly presence on Encore of classic mini-series and a new mini-series that we are bringing. For the time being, I think the home of mini-series will be on Encore.

Michael Bay and his team are experts in exciting tentpole-type film and television, and the combination of their film experience plus the great television writers that have come on will be really successful in bringing us something really unique. We are looking to put on these big canvas shows, and Black Sails is going to fit into that. The scripts have been terrific. Everything that we are trying to do is incredibly ambitious, and this is certainly in that category.

Movie people think things are movies, and authors think things should be movies because, up until recently, movies have been the jewel in the crown. But, that seems to be changing.